Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

COMMUNIST COMBATANT CELLS • 119U.S. currency as legal tender, since it is not backed by a gold standard,they arrogated to themselves the right to forge fake letters ofcredit to defraud others.Such groups often serve lien documents and summonses on authentic-lookingembossed paper, thus intimidating unwary victimsinto paying fines not legally owed to anyone. Another group promisedthe unsuspecting that for $300 they could file papers entitlinga person to reclaim all taxes ever paid to the federal government.Members of these groups have also forged for themselves fake policeidentification papers and badges. Because of these practices ofissuing false letters of credit and fraudulent financial instruments andfiling bogus liens, as well as these groups’ connection with armedextremist groups of the far right, the FBI has classified them as athreat to national security.The movement faded into relative obscurity following the arrestsand convictions of the Freeman of Montana and the Republic ofTexas members in 1997, both of which had used common-law courttactics to harass and defraud their victims. In part, the decline of themovement can be attributed to the increase in media coverage of thismovement and a corresponding increase in state and local legislationdefining the issuance of false liens as a form of racketeering. Oneof the few remaining current active advocates of the common-lawcourts is Elder Burk-Hale, whose organization, the Fully InformedGrand Jurors Alliance, maintains an office in Ringgold, Georgia, anda website but which is otherwise largely inactive.COMMUNIST COMBATANT CELLS (CCC). The Cellules CommunistesCombattantes was a nonstate Belgian anarchistic leftistgroup active from 1984 to 1985 that engaged in bombings to protestagainst the “Americanization” of Europe, capitalism, and the NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. The CCC did notenjoy any state sponsorship but briefly formed an alliance withthe Red Army Faction (RAF) and Action Directe (AD) that wasknown as the Anti-Imperialist Armed Front to coordinate their actionsagainst governments of nations in the NATO alliance. UnlikeRAF and AD, however, the CCC tended to pick symbolic and strategictargets for bombings and to target property rather than humanlife, using the terrorist event as armed propaganda for publicizingits own specific issues or causes rather than as direct military tactics